The Disappearance of Émile Zola Read online

  We can look at these photographs as pictures of a new kind of London, the modern suburban fringe to the old city. The railway system had been adapted to snake out of the centre into the surrounding stretches of countryside, hamlets and villages, which, in turn, gave the cue to builders to create hundreds of estates and terraces for a new way of living: menfolk would work five days a week in offices in central London, while their wives stayed at home and their children went to school. At the weekend, a round of suburban activities opened up to the new urban middle class: shopping, gardening, cycling, motoring and sports clubs – tennis and rugby. Though Médan, Zola’s country house, was in a similar position in relation to Paris, and the railway out of Paris bisected the Zolas’ garden, the settlements in France retained a much more ‘villagey’ feel. Clearly, the person taking these photographs was interested in the ordinariness of everyday life in Norwood as well as its modernity but we can guess that he was also interested in the ways in which these ordinary – yet fairly prosperous – Londoners were creating a settlement that was different from the Parisian one.

  But, of course, this wasn’t an anonymous photographer, it was the novelist who had put the bitter, difficult lives of the French poor in front of the world’s reading public. He had explored their daily existence in minute material detail, along with their passions, sex lives and ways of dying.

  Once Zola had brought the great Rougon-Macquart cycle of novels to an end, photography became something of an obsession for him. The roots of his interest went back to the 1860s when he met up with one of France’s early professional photographers, Félix Tournachon (known as ‘Nadar’). Nadar was part of the circle which included Manet and, thanks to Zola himself, Zola’s school-friend Cézanne. From 1876 onwards, Nadar took portraits of Zola and from the letters between the two men it’s clear that Zola received advice from Nadar about how to take photos. By 1888 he was hooked and, at the time of his death, Zola owned at least ten cameras and had installed a darkroom in the Zolas’ house in Paris, another in the house in Médan and yet another in Verneuil, where Jeanne and the children lived when the Zolas were at Médan. Sometimes he would spend hours on end – whole days even – developing, fixing, printing and enlarging in the gloom of his darkrooms. It became a major part of his life. He broke new ground too: he perfected a little device that allowed him to take selfies, which he applied in particular to group shots of himself with Jeanne and the children. He discovered that a camera could be used to preserve and sanctify his family, with a place for him, as paterfamilias, right at the heart of it. He experimented with different kinds of paper, including the most modern platinum paper which was less likely to age and deteriorate.

  He was interested in taking photographs from above the subject or of views across the cityscape, as if he wanted to capture the urban landscape in one glance. In Paris, he took pictures from the top of the Trocadéro and the brand-new Eiffel Tower. He tried out different cameras and, unlike most of his contemporaries, worked in rain, snow and even at night, using plate cameras as well as the most modern film cameras. In relation to his writing, Zola claimed that his visual memory was equipped with an ‘extraordinary vividness’ and that he could evoke objects he had seen in ways that meant he could see them again as they really were. Photography supplemented and enlarged this for him and is linked to what he thought of as the scientific approach to writing. Naturalist writers sought to inform themselves with the latest, most accurate, most scientifically reliable data and observations. In the theory, this is what made their work ‘natural’, the idea being that it was closer to the real (that is, ‘nature’) than what could be imagined. Photography, with its scientific modernity, was seen by some as related to this by appearing to document what was really there, representing it with verisimilitude.

  In England, Zola worked with a camera described by Alain Pagès as a ‘jumelle photographique’ so it would either have been his ‘Jumelle Carpentier’, a highly portable plate camera, shaped like an enclosed pair of binoculars (jumelles = binoculars or, literally, ‘twins’) with one lens used for viewing the subject and other for taking the exposure; or it could have been his ‘Joux Steno-Jumelle’ which could take eighteen pictures on one plate. The ever-faithful Desmoulin put the jumelle in Zola’s trunk which Desmoulin had brought with him to the Oatlands Park Hotel on 29 July, along with the scores of books he needed for writing Fécondité – camera and books side by side as part of the ‘science’ of Zola’s work. On 10 August we find Zola writing to Vizetelly asking him to buy six boxes of plates and on 9 September Vizetelly was explaining to Zola that he’d tried to get his plates developed and had shopped around various dealers but the cheapest would charge 28 shillings (£1.40) to develop and fix seventy-two plates. Vizetelly explained that developing and printing the work of amateur photographers was ‘very rare’ in London and several shops refused to do it at any price. Zola was clearly unhappy with the price but said that he was ‘obliged’ (‘forcé’) to accept local prices.

  In amongst his pictures of the Norwood streets and ground-level views of the Crystal Palace, Zola caught an even more striking perspective of this spectacular building: it rises up above the terraced houses, with rows of chimney stacks leading the eye to the cathedral-like curves of the Palace’s tower. The viewpoint of the photographer is clear: he is grabbing a vista – near and far, side to side, great height down to ground level. Both photographer and viewer are made small in proportion to it.

  Little wonder that the Crystal Palace should have figured so strongly in his photos: only five years earlier, Zola and Alexandrine had visited the ‘Palais de Crystal’ in very different circumstances. It’s worth tracking back to this earlier episode in London, as it would have still been very alive in the Zolas’ memory.

  7

  ‘The Republic of Letters’

  On the evening of 23 September 1893, there was a banquet laid on in the great dining-hall of the Crystal Palace for the annual conference of the Institute of Journalists. A toast was drunk to ‘Our Foreign and Colonial Guests’ and Zola, with Alexandrine at his side, rose to speak. Full of optimism and hope, he said,

  Above the secular hatreds of races, the accidental misunderstandings of peoples, the interests and jealousies which trouble Empires and Republics, there is a kingdom serene and calm, vaster than any, immense, containing them all – the kingdom of human intelligence, of letters, and of universal humanity …

  [T]he initiative taken by the institute seems to me to promise happy and fraternal results. We can for an hour forget our different nationalities and our quarrels …

  And above all, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to see this brotherhood between the literatures of different peoples extended to the works of each literature taken by itself. Yes, I should wish that now, after the battle, there should no longer be realists or idealists, positivists or symbolists, and that only work which sows good seed and the genius that creates life should remain.

  This was in essence an internationalist and pacifist vision. Its seriousness was acknowledged at the time, as much of the speech was reproduced in many European newspapers in the following days (the above is how it appeared in British newspapers of the time). Soon after Zola’s speech and the votes of thanks, the guests made their way out into Crystal Palace Park where there was a huge fireworks display, which included a moment when the fireworks lit up a portrait of Zola in the night sky above London. He was being greeted and saluted as an international hero.

  The Crystal Palace event was one of a series at which Zola was wined, dined and fêted over ten days as part of this visit to the annual congress of the Institute of Journalists. In some respects, Zola’s experience of London in 1898–9 can be viewed through the prism of his first heroic stay in 1893.

  It had all begun on Wednesday 20 September, when Zola and Alexandrine left Gare Saint-Lazare at 11.30 a.m. At Calais, they met twelve eminent French journalists, Ernest Vizetelly and Zola’s biographer Robert Sherard. After a good crossing in spite of
the wind, the party arrived at Victoria Station at 7 p.m. on the same day. The director of Le Figaro was waiting for them. Zola was flattered to be greeted personally and publicly by Sir Edward Lawson, the former president of the Institute of Journalists and chief editor of the Daily Telegraph, along with a sizeable crowd. Lawson spoke in French, leading Zola to suspect that no French newspaper director could have greeted a British writer in English. Lawson spoke of his respect and admiration for Zola’s prolific output. Zola replied in French that he was touched by the welcome and thanked England in the name of the Society of Letters, and French literature as a whole. It’s amusing to think that this formality took place at Victoria Station, which at the time would have been full of clouds of smoke and steam and the sound of whistles, porters’ shouts and snorting engines.

  In the build-up to the visit, Zola had expressed reservations about going to Britain, pointing out to Vizetelly that his work was ‘still very much questioned there, and almost denied’. Yet he thought that, by coming, his presence and words might wipe out ‘much of the misunderstanding’. What was Vizetelly’s view on the matter? Vizetelly replied at great length, pointing out that things had improved – though he said he should also point out that the Institute of Journalists represented journalists from all over the country and he couldn’t vouch for the response Zola might receive from provincial delegates. Even so, Vizetelly had strongly recommended accepting the invitation.

  Following the meet-and-greet at Victoria Station, the Zolas headed to the Savoy where a basket of flowers, sent by Oscar Wilde, waited for Alexandrine. That evening, they visited the Alhambra Theatre, and chatted for a few moments with Wilde, described by Zola in his notes, as the ‘charming and remarkable poète’. The show was called Chicago.

  The following day, Thursday 21 September, Zola noted that the Thames in front of the Savoy Hotel disappeared under a thick fog. He was told it was the first of the season but he was delighted by it as he would have been greatly disappointed to have visited London without seeing one of its famous fogs. He took a ride in a landau under a ‘smoky red sky’ and, as the fog lifted, he was impressed by the size of everything – the enormous black buildings which appeared and disappeared, the many statues and columns throwing dark shadows. The only gaiety was provided by the red coats of the soldiers. The fog, he thought, turned the place into a ‘pays de rêve’ – a dream-land.

  That afternoon, Zola attended the first session of the journalists’ congress and heard the attorney-general, Sir Charles Russell, welcome everyone and Zola in particular. Zola began to realise that he was being cast as the star of the week and journalists clamoured to meet him. Russell reminded everyone that Zola had begun his writing career in journalism and led the delegates in three cheers for him.

  That evening, the Zolas visited the Drury Lane Theatre with Lawson to see A Life of Pleasure, a five-act play by Henry Pettit and Augustus Harris. Following the show, he had to attend a reception at the Imperial Institute in South Kensington, which at the time was a colossal building celebrating the Victorian imperial vision. Zola wasn’t so happy on this occasion as he felt that the organisation was very poor.

  At some point in the day, Zola found time to write to his ‘adorable wife’, Jeanne, to tell her that he hadn’t been ill on the crossing, he had been greeted with a very beautiful speech and that he was a great success ‘here’. Invitations were coming in from all sides, and he was worried that it would all make him ill. Even so he was happy and convinced that the result of this trip would be excellent for him. He assured her that he was not forgetting his ‘three dear children’ (who apparently included Jeanne). He had thought of them only the night before, just as he was going to bed. In the middle of even the biggest of crowds, Jeanne was in his heart. He had been able to find a moment when he could be alone, and say to himself that, over there in a little corner of France, there were three dear little darlings who were thinking of him. He didn’t dare ask Jeanne to write to him, he said, as he did not know who her letter should be addressed to.

  The following day, Friday 22nd, was a double triumph for Zola: he read his first speech, ‘Anonymity in the Press’ to a full session of the Congress at Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Following that, the Zolas retired to the Savoy and strolled for a while by the Thames, which Zola found ‘adorable’. In the evening, he was received at the Guildhall, by the Lord Mayor at a sumptuous reception with over 4,000 guests, toasted and cheered again and again. While trumpets heralded him and Alexandrine, they descended the staircase into the vast hall. This red carpet moment was capped when Zola realised that he and Alexandrine, preceded by shouts of ‘Monsieur and Madame Zola!’ from the master of ceremonies, were to walk through a cordon of what he described as ‘a double hedge of women’, adding, ‘there is no ensemble more delicious than all this milky flesh, and the hundreds of beautiful gleaming eyes staring at us’. This was of course immensely gratifying for Zola and the Vizetelly family, both in the moment and by way of a reversal of how Zola’s work had been treated in the past. After all his novels had been banned in Britain; Henry Vizetelly, Ernest’s father, had been imprisoned for publishing them, and was, even at this very moment, dying from the effects of his time in Pentonville Prison.

  Following the triumph of the Guildhall reception, the Zolas repaired to the Café Royal where they ate oysters, before returning late to the Savoy.

  The following day (Saturday 23rd) the Lincoln’s Inn speech on anonymity was published in the London papers, alongside long commentaries and editorials. The newspaper-reading public could muse on how Zola admitted that the practice of signing political articles in France had undermined the authority of the French press, yet it had to be recognised that much of the passion in politics sprang from that. He understood and accepted that it was the practice of British journalists to write anonymously, but pleaded strongly for signed articles in literary and dramatic criticism, which, he noted was starting to happen in British periodicals. He claimed that one consequence of this was that British newspaper men were well paid (much laughter), and he likened some journalists to mere writing-machines at the beck and call of a superior (dissent). Not so, said some later; after all when the Pall Mall Gazette changed hands, most of the staff left.

  Zola continued:

  To my thinking, when a writer does not sign his work, and becomes a mere wheel in a great machine, he ought to share the income earned by that machine. Have you retiring pensions for your aged journalists? After they have devoted their anonymous labour to the common task, year after year, is the bread of their old age assured to them? If they signed their work, surely they would find their reward elsewhere; they would have laboured for themselves. But when they have given their all, even their fame, strict justice demands that they should be treated like those old servants whose whole life has been spent in the service of the same family.

  Vizetelly drily noted in his biography of Zola, ‘… in journalism as in other matters, Zola was on the side of the worker and against the capitalist.’

  Judged by the extent to which the speech was reported and commented on, it was clear that Zola seized the attention of the British press, with the commentaries and correspondence following every word he said.

  On the day this all appeared, the 23rd, Zola and François Magnard, editor of Le Figaro, had lunch at the Athenaeum, with Baron d’Estournelles de Constant, the chargé d’affaires at the French embassy. Zola found the place ‘cold and silent’, with everyone keeping their voices quiet – ‘comfortable and very melancholy’. Then he was taken off to the Travellers’ Club (‘less exclusive but very aristocratic’) and then to the Liberal Club where he met up again with Alexandrine and had a cup of tea(!). Next stop was the National Society of Teachers of French in England at 20 Bedford Street where he was given champagne and made an honorary member. Yet again, Zola expressed his deep gratitude to the people honouring and fêting him. That evening the Zolas attended the great banquet at the Crystal Palace, already mentioned. In his notes, he expressed
the fear that his speech had been too literary. Though it was the climax of the visit, there were still more outings and receptions to come.

  Again, at some point in the day, he wrote to his ‘adorable wife’, telling Jeanne that he had been acclaimed everywhere. He told her of the 4,000 who burst into applause at the Guildhall and he was telling her that, he said, because he had thought of her just then. He said to himself, at that very moment, she would be having a big snooze. (‘un gros dodo’). He wished that Jeanne and the children could have been there to take part in it all. One day, his children, he said, should be known by the world as his; he wanted them to share the name of their father. He kissed them with all his strength, his big Jeanne, his little Denise and his little Jacques.

  On Sunday 24 September, there was a garden party at Sir Edward Lawson’s house in Taplow on the Thames, which Zola was enchanted by. In the evening, they went off to dinner at the house of Campbell Clarke, the Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.

  On the Monday evening (the 25th) there was yet another reception, this time at the home of Sir Augustus Harris, director of the Covent Garden Opera House and on the 26th, the party of French journalists including Zola visited Hatfield House. On the 27th Zola could devote himself to photography and then, with Alexandrine and Vizetelly, he had lunch with Andrew Chatto, who had published the final volumes of the Rougon-Macquart cycle. From this point on, Chatto became Zola’s preferred English publishers, as the proceedings against Henry Vizetelly had broken the Vizetelly firm.

  In the afternoon, Zola and Vizetelly visited the British Museum. Dr Richard Garnett, the poet, critic and curator of the Prints Department, met them and took them round the library where Zola was much impressed with the Reading Room, voicing that it was superior to the equivalent at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Following that, Zola visited the French Hospital and then the ‘French Circle of London’, a group of Francophiles who met to discuss French books and ideas. According to Vizetelly, Zola formed a very poor opinion of Hyde Park, while the royal barracks and Buckingham Palace were, he thought, a national disgrace.